Cosatu could back Ramaphosa to unify ANC

COSATU is putting to­gether a list of at least six names of se­nior ANC lead­ers that would be ca­pa­ble of lead­ing the party into the 2019 elec­tions.

But Cosatu boss Sdumo Dlamini in­sists the fed­er­a­tion’s fo­cus at its spe­cial cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing to­mor­row to dis­cuss this “del­i­cate is­sue” would not be on an in­di­vid­ual leader, but on a col­lec­tive lead­er­ship.

The cho­sen lead­er­ship, Dlamini said, was one that had to have the ca­pac­ity to unite the tri­par­tite al­liance and whose pol­icy in­cli­na­tions were to the ben­e­fit of the work­ing class and the poor.

Those were the prin­ci­ples adopted by Cosatu in 2005 in de­cid­ing on names of lead­ers. At to­mor­row’s meet­ing, Cosatu will have to de­cide whether it will stick to the same prin­ci­ples or aban­don them go­ing into 2017.

How­ever, Dlamini — known to be a close Zuma ally — raised con­cerns that back­ing a par­tic­u­lar name at this point was tan­ta­mount to back­ing a par­tic­u­lar fac­tion.

“The al­liance must work to­wards lift­ing the process out of fac­tions,” he said in an in­ter­view this week.

This meant strik­ing com­pro­mises to en­sure the 2017 con­fer­ence is not con­tested for the sake of the unity of the ANC.

Two fac­tions cur­rently ex­ist in the ANC. One, led by the so-called premier league, sup­ports Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and the other is strongly lob­by­ing for Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa’s name dom­i­nated Cosatu’s congress last year as af­fil­i­ates be­lieved it was tra­di­tion for a deputy to suc­ceed a pres­i­dent, and that he would help to unify af­fil­i­ates. The SA Demo­cratic Teach­ers’ Union and the Na­tional Union of Minework­ers have both re­solved to sup­port Ramaphosa. It is un­der­stood the Na­tional Health and Al­lied Work­ers’ Union and the Po­lice and Pris­ons Civil Rights Union, in al­most all prov­inces, share this view.

elec­tion money un­til af­ter the GOP con­ven­tion in late Au­gust and had few ways to de­fend him­self and never re­cov­ered.

Obama also had a dis­tinct ad­van­tage over Clin­ton: His own favoura­bil­ity rat­ing was solid, mak­ing him an ap­peal­ing al­ter­na­tive for vot­ers turned off by Democrats’ por­trayal of Rom­ney.

Clin­ton doesn’t have that same reser­voir of good­will and her stand­ing with vot­ers is as shaky as Trump’s, though her chief weak­ness is trust­wor­thi­ness.

Trump aides have long be­lieved vot­ers’ doubts about Clin­ton cre­ated an open­ing for the Repub­li­can, if he could con­trol his worst po­lit­i­cal im­pulses. He showed no abil­ity to do that through­out the sum­mer, but was fi­nally per­suaded by a new team of ad­vis­ers who pre­sented him with plum­met­ing polls and a stark warn­ing that he was on the path to de­feat.

Aides say the tight­en­ing polls have val­i­dated the new ap­proach in Trump’s eyes. He also has ben­e­fited from a rough patch for Clin­ton, in­clud­ing her cam­paign’s se­cre­tive han­dling of her re­cent pneu­mo­nia di­ag­no­sis and a steady drip of rev­e­la­tions about her use of a pri­vate email sys­tem at the State Depart­ment. — AFP